“I always ask one of these women you speak of, what is wrong with her,” said a very kindly friend of mine. “But they never will tell me anything. I give them money and buy their matches or anything they have to sell, and I always try to have a little talk with them, but they won’t answer. I ask them where they’re going to sleep, and if they’ve walked far, and they just mumble something and move away.”

I suppose it is difficult if you have never been within a mile of destitution to realise how completely you are cut off from the common channels of communication. The poor women my friend referred to, very probably, did not know exactly where they had come from; they certainly did not know where they would sleep. Further, they associate interrogation with officialdom, and the never absent fear of the institution governs their mind. If they say nothing, little can be proved against them. Once they give an account of themselves they may be caught out in a lie, and between a false statement and a policeman there is a pitifully short distance. You must never hope to learn by direct question. The only way you can find out the truth is to go down into the depths, lead their lives and endure their privations.